The buzz has died down a bit, but there are still a few sites catching up with the X06 Halo Wars bombshell. The latest is the BBC's site, which quoted Bungie's Brian "SketchFactor" Jarrard as well as HBO's own fansite editor, Claude "Louis Wu" Errera.
As for why a Halo RTS by Ensemble, Sketch put it nicely:
"Halo started as an RTS. Would the Bungie team love to do one themselves? Possibly.
1Up is reporting that EGM's issue #210, presumably the December 2006 issue if it will hit newsstands on November 14th as they claim, will feature Halo 3 in a big way. The current issue has a teaser for that feature.
I have created the sheet music for the piano part of the Halo 3 trailer!!! But how do I show it to you guys???
UPDATE: It's up now on the front page.
Yep, well I've received a lambasting from a few in IBO, and support from a few others. A lot of focus in this thread has been on whether an RTS is the right medium to go through, and that's getting beside my point. I'm replying to me previous post as to not clutter up the forum with my rants. I think I can sum up my point in a few steps of thought.
1. I consider Halo an art.
2. Artwork is created by an artist in the medium he/she chooses and portrayed in the angles and perspectives he/she wishes.
3. I happen to like the art that this artist creates.
Frankie and SketchFactor, over in Barcelona for the X06 event, decided to do a different sort of Humpday Challenge this week, applying their Halo 2 skills to other games available for play.
The two pitted themselves against bots in Shadowrun (the bots won) and then against each other in Gears of War (Frankie won).
I'm concerned. I'm all for new Halo content, and that trailer blew me away (give me more cinematic CGI!), but there are some concerns I'd like to toss out there to see if anyone else feels the same.
New Hands.
While I don't think there's enough actual content in the Halo Wars trailer to do a full-on annotation, as for the Halo 3 trailer, I did think it worthwhile to try and collect some thoughts about yesterday's announcements that will be worth pondering in the time between now and when we actually see these new games. Some are picayune details, and some are big questions. First, the picayune details.
For the entire article, click "read more" from the front page.
Since real Bungie fans don't trust a word that is said about the Halo franchise, or indeed any Bungie game, unless it comes straight from Bungie, KP has now posted at Bungie.net to give the official imprimatur to the heretofore scurrilous rumors spread in Spain by Peter Moore and Peter Jackson.
To wit:
Peter Jackson has just been on stage with Peter Moore to announce the formation of Wingnut Interactive.
I really believe that there is a new form of entertainment that is not a film and is not a game. I am not a game designer. But what I am really interested in is in the idea of taking games and stories that could be films, but might not be films.
Those of you who thought that behind the closure of the Halogen project, a three-year-long attempt to make an unofficial mod for Command & Conquer Generals, lay a more sinister purpose, your suspicions have been confirmed. Ensemble Studios, creators of Microsoft's real-time strategy series Age of Empires, has announced Halo Wars, a real-time strategy game set in the Halo universe. The game will be developed in collaboration with Bungie and released for the PC and the Xbox 360.
1Up is reporting that Peter Jackson and Microsoft are forming a new games studio, Wingnut Interactive. The announcement cites Jackson's involvement in Halo 3 and a future Microsoft title.
UPDATE: 1Up has added some details to this item, fleshing out Jackson's involvement. It no longer mentions Halo 3 specifically, but does say:
Getting at the live video stream provided by the UK Xbox site seems to be a bit problematic, so here is an akamai cache link:
mms://a1369.l2074835666.c20748.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1369/20748/v0001/reflector:48948?wmcache=0
Nothing Bungie or Halo related so far. As Louis Wu pointed out at HBO there is also a live blog of the event at 1UP: